


the mighty

by duchamp



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 02:04:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9577346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duchamp/pseuds/duchamp
Summary: If someone were to ask him to pinpoint his earliest memory of when it—whatever he’sgot—started, it would be when he was ten.





	

If someone were to ask him to pinpoint his earliest memory of when it—whatever he’s _got_ —started, it would be when he was ten.

The old man was gone to a gun show in Santa Barbara for the entire week. And, for the first time in forever, Seth experienced what it was like to not be living day to day waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He wasn’t thinking about what would happen if the table wasn’t set perfectly before dinner. What would happen if the leftovers weren’t put away properly. If the plates weren’t washed and dried in the specific order Dad preferred. Him and Richard feasted on bowls of Cheerios and SpaghettiO’s and left the dishes in the sink for as long as they damn well pleased.

They watched the shows they wanted, when they wanted. Saturday Night Live, old horror movies, reruns of Law & Order; although Richard was able to figure out whoever the perpetrator was ten minutes into each episode without fail, so it wasn’t so much fun after awhile. They went to go see the local baseball team practice after school. Sat up in the bleachers until the sun went down.

Seth didn’t have to put a filter on whatever came out of his mouth at any given second. He wasn’t worried about what would happen when he’d say the wrong thing at the wrong time and inevitably get whacked and whether or not Richard would stay locked in his room like Seth always ordered him to do.

But when they got the call that Dad was on his way back—there you go. The moment, right there. Because whatever had been lying dormant in Seth’s body decided that it was well and truly done with taking a long ass ten-year nap. Showed its true, ugly colors. Started with his chest, constrictions and a weight so heavy that it left him wheezing. Then his legs, buckling. Violent panic rising and a feeling that the earth was going to open right on up and swallow him whole which was stupid because that would never happen. But Seth believed it at the time and that’s what counted.

After that, similar episodes would happen periodically. And by periodically, yeah, practically all the damn time. It wasn’t until Gabe from fourth period told him about how he was selling his mom’s Zoloft for some extra cash and, ‘Hey, Seth, you want some?’ Yeah, Gabe, of course he’d fucking want some. So he emptied the canister of change he left under his bed and gave it all to Gabe and, whad’ya know, he could finally breathe again.

The meds made him drowsy, though, and his teachers started to notice him drift in class. Attention waning, assignments not turned in, more failed quizzes than the average grades he always managed to pull. They called Dad. Told him they wanted to test him for behavioral disabilities. Whatever psychiatric hullabaloo that meant.

He didn’t cooperate. Told Dad he was just being lazy, even if it earned him a black eye and a shattered wrist. Richard had just got diagnosed as autistic and Seth saw first hand what happened when someone got slapped with a label. The last thing he wanted to be called was a freak. And while there seemed to always be a glass pane between his brother and others, Seth was great around people. Could talk up a storm, earn a couple laughs, act like he was perfectly fine even if he wasn’t. It was pretty easy to hide.

 

 

 

 

He knows, he _knows_ people would say he should’ve gotten it fixed.

But fuck that.

Richard had his prescriptions and his puzzles and Richard had him and Seth didn’t have anything or anyone because Seth didn’t need anything or anyone because he was fine. Okay? He was _fine_. He had it covered. Total pro, hit a home run, all the bases considered.

 

 

 

 

Three things Seth Gecko knows:

 

1) Don’t mix SSRI’s and alcohol at the same time. You’ll get knocked on your ass. (Although there are times when you’ve absolutely got to. See Exhibit A: The Abilene Mutual Bank robbery colossal fuck-up.)

2) The best marijuana strain to get the body to just _relax_ is GDP.

3) Heroin is, well. Not to wax poetic or anything, but—your favorite meal, the catchiest song on the radio, the smoothest orgasm you ever had, the staircase to fucking heaven.

 

 

 

 

There’s been no one before Kate. She gets too close, digs too deep, mucks it all up. She can tell he’s _off_. She can tell he’s not normal. She can tell and she doesn’t care and somehow that makes it worse.

He starts to use in front of her. They get into fights. He… he calls her names. He says some ugly, ugly things. He calls her a naïve brat who knows fuck-all about the real world and tells her she needs to stop shaping him up to be some teen girl crush of hers because she doesn’t have high school or the boys that come with; pining after her and lining up to take her on real dates. He calls her another mouth to feed and says he never should have agreed to let her come along.

She listens to him. She cries.

He’s not proud of it.

She says, “Tell me what I can do.” She says, “Let me make it better.”

He says, “You wouldn’t understand.”

She says, “Let me try.”

I’ve never had a real friend besides my brother who needs to be my friend and who needs to love me whether he wants to or not because we’re blood and we’re family and that’s what families do. I instigate fights to deal with the fucked up shit swimming around in my head all the damn time because getting pummeled into a bloody sack of meat or pummeling someone else into a bloody sack of meat is the only thing that manages to distract me. I’ve been shoveling pills down my throat since I was ten. I’ve got one failed marriage behind me already and I’m only twenty-seven. I’m twenty-seven and you’re seventeen and I want to kiss you. I want to hold you and fuck you and do things to you that you probably don’t even know guys _do_ to women.

He doesn’t say anything.

 

 

 

 

She’s nearly shot point blank in his arms.

World tilting to the side, coming down off his high, heroin still singing in his system when their triumph turns into a nightmare. There’s an ancient culebra lackey demanding Santanico’s location. Demanding his brother’s head. Small heap of pale youth and brown hair splattered in blood and this _thing_ , this thing with the gun, zeroes in on Kate like the target she is. He tells Seth he doesn’t need her, tells Seth he’s going to _kill_ her, and there’s enjoyment going hand in hand with the matter of fact nature of his voice.

He knows who she is. What she means to Seth. And it’s the cruelest trick, swiped from any age-old narrative. I’ll take the thing you love from you, and then I’ll break you.

And Seth can’t fucking do anything about it because he’s a junkie whose reaction time is for shit and if it wasn’t for the snake kid coming forward, fangs bared, Kate would go from being the heartbeat he falls asleep to to being a red mess in his lap.

After, when they’re in the car, and she’s in the passenger seat, whole and safe, he takes his eyes off the road to consider her. Mute and steady, and he knows she’s never going to leave. Which is entirely beyond him, even if he can see how it’ll all play out—they’ll get back, haul ass to a new place. They’ll still be losing more money than they can live off of and she’ll finally have had it. She’ll order he get clean. And he’ll do it. He’ll do it and he’ll resent her for it and she’ll resent him.

But she won’t leave.

So he does.

You’ve got to just let me die, kid.

 

 

 

 

She dies. He’s not there.

It’s only been a short time without, but it feels like the longest absence when the needle pierces his skin. An embrace, a welcome.

It’s almost loving.

It’s coming home.

 

 

 

 

“Seth.” Whisper in his ear, easy cadence. There are sheets at his back, white and cool.

He turns his head. Opens his eyes. Sees her peering down at him. Eyes in slits, curious and playful. “Katie?” Her name is thick in his throat, in his mouth.

“You went someplace else for a second,” she explains, bending further over him. Chin resting on his chest, whole body nearly prone on top of him. She’s lighter than he ever thought she’d be.

“I’m right here,” he says, and she starts to blush cherry red when he curtains her hair out of her face. But, no, it’s not her skin being stained with innocent color—she’s starting to bleed. Red leaking from her pores. She’s dissolving. Gone almost entirely when he jolts from his haze, limp and heavy, used and swollen.

There’s noise coming from the bathroom, adjacent to where he’s curled on the floor. He can’t remember what happened. How he got there. Just knows it was sweet for awhile. Kate came back. (And then she went away, but that’s how his hallucinations always go.)

He manages to stand on his feet, steady enough to see Richard flushing his drugs through the open door. A force comes over, bone crushing, and he runs at his brother. Lands a right hook across his jaw, blood running from Richard’s mouth before it begins to heal. Skin sealing into a clean line, like nothing happened. Useless. Like the vestiges of what hasn’t been flushed floating in the toilet. And Seth drops to his knees, curls over the bowl, trying to fish what he can out before Richard hauls him up and throws him back. “This is going to _end_. I don’t know how she did it—”

“Don’t, Richard. _Don’t_ —”

He attempts to move, to still retrieve what he can, but Richard bars him; supernatural strength encompassing and it’s _useless_. “She wouldn’t want you to—”

“Don’t talk about what she would’ve wanted when you’re the reason she’s dead,” Seth sneers, and he almost regrets the words once they’ve come out. Almost.

Richard frowns. But he’s keeping himself contained, which is more than can be said for when they’ve brought up Kate before. When Seth’s practically issued a verdict of guilty each time, even though he knows Richard’s in no way responsible. That Richard’s grieving, too. But he’s been the closest one to shovel all the hurt on. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to say shit like that when loving you nearly killed her.” 

“She didn’t.” Seth laughs. Manic. Unhinged. His drugs are gone and it’s Richard’s fault and now he’s spouting _this_.

“She did. I _know_ she did, because you’re my brother, Seth. You’re my goddamn brother and _I_ can barely do this.” Admission splintering, Richard eases. “There’s a clinic,” he says. “You’re going to go.” Like it’s that simple. Like it’s one plus one equals two.

“I don’t know,” Seth mumbles, tears at the corners of his eyes as he blinks them back. He’s not going to cry. He’s not a kid. He’s supposed to be the strong one. “I didn’t mean to do this. I didn’t.” He’s not making any sense. Sinking to the floor, taking Richard with him.

And he’s taught Richard how to tie his shoes and double-knot them and he’s packed his lunch and he’s tried to help him not shut down in social situations and he’s socked kids who’ve made fun of him and here’s his baby brother holding him as he starts to sob. “It’s going to be okay,” Richard’s saying. “We’re going to put this on the straight and narrow. You’re going to be okay.”

 

 

 

 

Three things Seth Gecko knows:

 

1) One year.

2) Two months.

3) Fourteen days.

 

 

 

 

Kate keeps count, too. Suggests he go to meetings in the various towns they visit. And he does. Instant coffee, donut holes, used newspapers, fold-out seats. Multiple stories; unique, yet somehow similar. Only it becomes more trouble than it’s worth, security footage of them migrating from one news broadcast to the next. Another outlet nixed. 

“Thinking about getting high?” Kate asks, shouldering anxiety whenever a trigger presents itself—leaving Seth feeling guilty over how much her and Richard worry.

He doesn’t shrug off the question. They don’t lie to each other. “Honestly, honey? Yeah, I am.” Works through how to put it, stops and starts. “But it’s not—it’s not like I would, alright? The thought is just… there. You know?”

“Okay,” Kate says.

She leaves it be.

**Author's Note:**

> So this will be the last one-shot I’m going to do for awhile. I still have the SethKate long fic I’m working on, and I think I’m going to start devoting all my attention towards that. Drop by and say hi on [Tumblr](http://highsmith.tumblr.com/).


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